Minor Complications
by Wisps Of Whispers
Summary: A small crew on a small ship is being paid a lot for a small job: retrieve a large metal ring with funny designs. Of course nothing ever goes easy for Mal and crew, so naturally something comes to complicate things.
1. Chapter 1: Dust, Dirt, andMetal

**Chapter 1: Dust, Dirt, and.. Metal**

* * *

"Remind me why we're botherin' with this again?" Mal asked as he paused in a small slat of shade provided by a fence post. It was a cattle ranch, or had been. Dirt and dust weren't too good for it. Wasn't too good for walking either, and the heat was a bitch.

"The money, sir." Zoe said. She stood feet shoulder width apart and back straight, like the heat didn't bother her.

Mal nodded his head and coughed, "Ah, right, that. We need that." He stood up and brushed some colorless dust off his pants, not that it did any good, things got more dirty doing so. "Why we walkin' and not on the ship?" He asked when he studied the dust in front of him. It was a desert, wasn't no doubt about it. They should've just flown to the site, picked up the artifact, and gone to wherever rich-britches lived.

"Ran out of fuel, sir."

Right. He knew that. It was the gorram heat, messing with his head. Solar flares, black holes, a brush or two or dozen with alliance patrols. Sent them running around every half-civilized outpost until they were forced to land on this god-forsaken dust bowl without enough fuel to fly.

He glared at the fence. The post leaned funny like it knew something he didn't. "Ship's busted too."

"We still headed in the right direction?" He asked once he stepped over the slack barbed wire.

"Map says we are." Zoe said.

"You certain 'bout that?" Mal asked with a glance at a few rock that had not gotten withered away. He had seen them before, he was certain of that.

"Certain."

"They look the same as the last ones we past."

"They all look like that."

Mal swore a bit and grumbled some more as they walked on. Clumps of dirt and cow-pies. Sand and dust and dirt. Heat. Lot of heat.

No water.

Somehow the wind and the sun hadn't worn down everything to nothing, so they climbed a few hills of rock and dust. They paused at the top of one. The sun beat down somewhere behind them, still high enough in the sky they didn't have much to worry about other than heat stroke. The hellhole landscape kept right on going and smack dab in the middle of where it turned from clear dust to hazy, there it was, poking out of the sand at an angle.

A grey stone all carved with funny symbols and oddly colored in the beige and yellow of their death trap of a desert. It was larger than rich-britches said, twice, three times the size. It also stood half buried in the sand and would take them all day to dig out.

Aside from a large collection of swear words and curses two things ran through Malcom Reynolds' mind. "How we supposed to move that thing?" and "We gotta dig it up too?" His mouth didn't quite wait for him to make up his mind what he was gonna say, so it came out all jumbled up and angry-like.

"Kaylee should be here soon with the transport." Zoe said and walked down the slope to the ring.

"Why didn't we just use it?" Mal asked, descending less gracefully. Money, that was why. It always came down to money and the job.

Also, there was another problem. There was no way their transport was gonna transport that thing. It was a problem for later, once they fixed the first ones. It was also metal, not stone, a small little detail he didn't much care about. They found something that matched the description, and they weren't gonna run around all day on a wild goose chase searching for something that more than likely wasn't there.

It was fine enough that they had brought shovels, but between the heat and the water that they hadn't Mal didn't feel very much like diggin. Not with hand shovels. And not for something that was large enough for a man to walk through.

They had made a dent in the ground by the time Kaylee arrived with the transport and a few more hands for diggin.

"That the thing, Captain?" Kaylee asked, cheerful and bubbly despite the heat.

"Sure is." Mal said with a squint up at it.

"What do you suppose those designs on it are for?" Kaylee asked. She jumped off the transport with more energy than anyone had a right to.

"Probably some alien doodles." Jayne grumbled, "Warning us to stay away and leave it buried. Ain't no good ever come from diggin' up old junk."

"The good that's comin' from it is what's gonna get us off this sand blasted rock." Mal said, "The man's wanting this ring and he's willing to pay for it."

Floodlights supplied by the transport gave them light to dig out around the ring. For their ease fate had decided to bury it when it had been pushed into the side of a hill. Which meant they only had to dig up half the desert instead of the entire thing. They also found some other interesting things, something that looked like a staircase with a platform, and then another odd thing with the same funny designs and a big red button. They hadn't been able to resist pressing the button, but nothing happen when they had.

"I think we can stand it up, Captain." Kaylee said, "Maybe keep it from getting buried again until we figure out how to get it back to the ship."

Machinery, ropes, and sore muscles pulled the ring up to the thing that must've been the base way back when, or maybe just whenever it got put there. Then it was light's out and time for sleep. Moving it could wait for morning.

"What do you suppose it was for?"

"Nothing good." Jayne said, "Else they wouldn't have buried it so far out here."

"Rich folk have an odd way of doing thing." Mal said, "Probably some odd artwork by a man who owned half the planet before the grass died off. Only thing we need to worry about is getting it back to Serenity. Then rich-britches is gonna pay us to fix our ship, refuel, and bring it to him. All our problems are gonna be solved and with only minor complications."

"Things are never minor complications with you sir." Zoe said.

* * *

**A/N: **I ran through this for the third round of edits. Unless it is a major thing it will have to wait until I get settled into this story.

Also, I normally write in a very stiff and formal manner. I chose to take an extremely casual style with this piece to challenge myself. So if things seem inconsistent, or it just feels a little forced, I apologize. Hopefully I will get better at it as this goes on.


	2. Chapter 2: Not What I Wanted

**Chapter 2: Not What I Wanted**

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Sounds woke Mal up often enough, but they were the kind that left him shouting for them to quiet down, and never woke him more than enough to do so. This one though roused him right up.

He was up and on his feet before the kawoosh was over. It gave him a good look though at the source of the sound. The metal ring had done something strange. Something close to water filled it, then the same not quite water pushed out like a bullet came and hit it from behind.

Simple as nothing it fell in on itself, and the others were up to stare at it. Then four people just walked right on out of it.

They looked normal enough, and treated coming out of the magic water portal like they were on a stroll through a garden. It was not normal though, it was plain unnatural.

That wasn't why Mal pulled his gun on them, it was the fact they had come from the ring he had been planning on packing up and taking away. Kaylee ducked down safe behind the transport. Calm as all creation Zoe followed Mal's lead and leveled her gun at the group.

To no one's surprise, Jayne had his gun out and pointed at the four. He scowled enough to more than make up for the fact he hadn't gotten to shoot anything yet. He swore too, but there was enough shouting that that didn't make much difference.

The four new additions to their attempted nothing-goes-wrong job drew their own weapons, three guns and a strange staff thing in the hands of a tall one with a funny forehead sticker. Behind them the not-water water disappeared from the ring.

"Hey, hey, hey!" yelled the man at the front of their little lopsided dart formation. He kept his gun pointed at them, which made his words harder to take seriously than they already were, "We come in peace."

The other two with guns gave him one of those looks that said even they found it hard to believe he said it. Earth-that-was may have been gone, they may have never seen hide nor hair of aliens, and civilization had fallen away so far out in the black, but they still knew that phrase. It was one of those funny things that held on.

"What you saying that for? You some kind of aliens?" Jayne shouted.

"Quit your shouting 'bout aliens, Jayne." Mal ordered.

"Lower your guns and we can talk."

Mal kept his gun aimed right at the funny gold thing on staff-man's forehead. He'd been shot enough times to know better than lower his first. "You lower your guns and we can."

Soon enough the guns were lowered, and the talking started up.

"Mind explaining how it is you came through that thing?" Mal asked

"The Stargate creates a wormhole through hyperspace and allows for near instantaneous travel from one gate to another." The middle one of the short side launched right into the explanation, like it was a manual or something. She also happened to be a woman. Mal filed that away for later. She carried a gun and women like that tended to mean trouble that ended with him getting shot.

Kaylee chose then to poke her head above her hiding spot like a little groundhog. "That thing allows for some kind of faster than light travel." She hopped on up and over the transport. It sounded like some of the things Wash talked about. "I knew it was possible, the only problem was just figuring out how. But how's it powered?"

The four of them looked mighty confused as she walked over to the ring and the funny device with the red button bent on finding out.

"That thing there must be the control panel. That is the door for it. But I don't see no power source."

The blond haired woman walked over to the device they had pressed the button on and found that it hadn't done anything. "The DHD- uh, the dial-home device provides power to the outgoing wormhole, then-"

Trust Kaylee to break the ice.

He'd have to remember to bring her along for that sorta thing. Well, that was if nobody'd get shot. He shouldered that plan real quick. People always started shooting sooner or later.

Still, no one was gonna start shooting now, not with the two women chummy chatting.

The one in the middle, his face, well expression, kinda looked like Simon's, just slightly more expressive. "Fascinating," he said, "they swear in Chinese."

"Any way that can help us figure out where we are, Daniel?" Leader-man asked, "Carter?"

Carter kept her attention on the gate and the thing she called the DHD. She had stopped her conversation with Kaylee to answer, but not by much if the pointing meant anything. "It looks like we are still on P3X-127, sir."

"I can see that." he said, then turned to Mal, "Where the hell are we?"

Mal shook his head. Minor complications, that was what they were supposed to have. Instead they got strangers calling the planet strange things and using stranger devices. "Demeter, and about as far out into the black as you can get before there just ain't nothing there. Not too many people clinging to life out here."

"Luckily we landed not too far from one of the towns." Zoe added.

The man turned back to his men, "What happened? And, please, explain it in English."

"It's hard to say, sir. Although there are a few possibilities."

"What few because I am not liking the first couple that come to mind."

"Neither do I." Stickers said.

Fascinating chose to slide himself back into his friends' conversation, "Well.. judging by the area around us a significant time has passed. A few centuries at least for the-"

"Solar flares or black holes." Carter said.

"See, _that's_ not what I wanted to hear."

"I don't know what they're talking about, but I don't like the sound of it." Jayne said.

Mal agreed with him. Nothing they said sounded good, not when it came to the job and complications. "What does that have to do with you all showin' up here and putting kinks in my plan to take that thing back to my ship?"

"It means until we figure out how to get us back to our planet the gate isn't going anywhere."

"Well then we have a problem seeing as Serenity's in need of repairs and I'm not getting paid until that's on her." Mal said.

"I bet Serenity has some things that could help you figure how to get back home. We just take everything back and send you home from there, then we can skedaddle to Persephone. " Kaylee suggested all bubbles and smiles, "That way everyone's happy, and we get what we need, captain."

"It's a good idea, sir." both Zoe and Carter said.

Zoe gave Carter one of those looks that Mal was never gonna be able to figure out, before she turned back to him, "Keeps the complications to a minimum."

"Well I don't like it." Jayne grumbled, "Where do they get the right to come and claim that thing? We dug it out. I say we just leave 'em here."

"Jayne."

"What?" The man said like he hadn't just said something that was gonna start the shooting. "Just sayin' it'd be easier if we just left 'em. How do you even plan on moving it? That thing's heavy."

"It's a wheel. We'll roll it." Mal said.

Turned out the stone or metal or whatever it was ring was harder to move than just propping it upright had been. It was heavy, well that was an understatement so far beneath the truth it was a lie. Had Mal been given the choice, particularly after the fact, he would have just flown Serenity over to it and found a way to get it on her without having to push a boulder up a hill. Rolling it had seemed like an easy enough plan, cars, bicycles, lots of things got along fine doing so, it made sense the Stargate would too.

Once they got it moving it was a fairly good plan so long as they kept it from falling over and managed to keep up. The transport provided some help there, so did physics, but too much of it was muscle work that they were gonna feel in the morning.

Serenity rose up to greet them, her hull shining in the bright sun like that promise she was. Then little dark spots of people milled about the place, far more than could have been accounted for a welcoming party.

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**A/N: **Thank you all for reading this, and for those of you who have added this to your alerts. I hope that I can do both these amazing shows and their characters justice.

Additionally, I know the chapters are on the short side. This is my first fanfiction and I am still learning to walk when it comes to it, so the running will have to wait for a bit.


	3. Chapter 3: The Chances of Getting Shot

**Chapter 3: **The chances of getting shot on a scale of zero to plot.

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There was a crowd of people round Serenity, the kind that looked the type to negotiate things the same way Jayne did. They brought the ring to a stop, and Mal walked out a little bit to get a better look.

The sun glare was bad, so even squinting it was hard for Mal to make out much. What he could, there wasn't nothing good about it.

"Friends of yours?" the leader-man asked.

"Ain't any of ours." Jayne said, "Wasn't anyone 'round when we left."

Mal nodded his head. No one should've been around. They were far enough out they shouldn't have been found. They should've been able to get the gate before anyone knew they were there.

"Think Simon and the others are safe?" Kaylee asked. She stood up in the transport, just in case the extra height let her see things just a bit clearer.

"Looks like she's closed up, Kaylee." Zoe said, "And no one's shooting yet."

"That's a good thing." Daniel said, then when everyone looked at him, like he hadn't just said the stupidest sentence, "Maybe if we go talk to them."

"Bad idea." Mal said, "Don't feel much like getting shot today."

"It doesn't appear that they're Goa'uld." Sam said, "Talking to them does look like the best bet."

"Goold or whatever? Doesn't matter." Mal said sliding right past the funny word, "They're not friendly if there's that many of them."

"Well, what do they want then?" Leader man asked, rightly annoyed at the lack of doing anything about it.

Mal paused. The normal plan of action wasn't gonna be of much use. There were too many people to take on if they started shooting, even if their new hands had some good looking guns. "We talk to them."

"Because that's not gonna get us shot." Jayne said.

"It's less likely to."

"More likely to."

Anyway they put it, they were likely to get shot. That's just how things went.

"Well I'm not gonna do it holding this thing." Jayne stepped back from holding the gate upright, and down it went in a big cloud of dust.

"What'd you do that for? Now we gotta get the thing back up." Mal shouted. There were far too many twinges in his back at the thought of it.

"Holding that thing would've just left us sitting duck, sir." Zoe said, "Like it or not, that's what we gotta do."

"It would be to our disadvantage to be moving the gate in the event they are hostile." Stickers said.

Mal sighed. They needed the gate, but it wasn't gonna do them any good if they were dead. "You all know how to handle yourselves?" Stupid questions deserved stupid answers, but they didn't give him one. "Kaylee."

"I know what to do if the shootin' starts, captain." Kaylee said, "Don't worry 'bout me."

The guns in Mal's holsters felt awful small as they made their way to the not-so-welcoming party, and he hoped the other guys' weapons held more bullets than his.

The man in charge sat high on his horse, so it wasn't much problem to find him. He didn't waste much time in making the crowd split to let him ride from Serenity to them.

"Is it gonna be death by hanging or shooting?"

"For what?"

"Trespassing and thievery."

"We're not doing either." Mal yelled back.

The man pointed to something on the other side of the crowd, and the direction they'd been in. "There's a sign over there, says clear as day, no trespassing."

"Well we're not stealing nothing." Didn't matter that technically they were, probably. The gate didn't really have an owner, not buried the way it was.

"Then what else you sneaking around here for?"

"Picking up passengers." Mal said, waving his arm at the gate-arrivals, "Nothing illegal about that."

"On a ship that's not flying?"

"Yes."

"Very well. What were they doing out in the desert?" The man said, turning to stare at them. "They don't look like friendlies."

Mal opened and closed his mouth. They sure didn't. Matching uniforms, vests that were more than likely meant to stop bullets, and their guns, the others didn't leave much room for guessing what they were. They looked enough like Alliance to cause suspicion.

Behind him Serenity's hatch opened. A plan sorta formed in Mal's head. It went a little something like: Stall, Get on Serenity.

"Well?" The man asked again, "What were you doing?"

Slide-Click. Slide-Click.

Mal slowly backed up, so did Zoe, and Kayle, and Jayne. The others held their ground. They needed to move, Mal wasn't gonna hold out to wait for them. They may have made a deal, but neither of them had the gate, so words didn't mean much.

"Surveying the land." Daniel said hastily, "We thought there might be evidence of ancient civilizations."

"There weren't nothing here before the terraforming." The man said, "I don't like your answer."

"I assure you, I am just a scientist."

"I don't think their listening, Daniel." Leader-man said and started his own men backing up.

"Well of course they aren't, not when you're pointing your guns at them."

Mal's foot hit the metal ramp. Just had to make the shooting wait just a bit longer.

"See, that's what I don't get." The man said, "What kinda scientist carries a gun. Specially the alliance kind."

The man shot Daniel. He went down with a bullet to the leg. Stickers shot something from his staff at the man. Then the mass shooting started. Someone grabbed Daniel and more than half dragged him up the ramp. His leg wasn't supporting anything with a bullet in it.

Mal wondered when he was gonna make shooting part of the first plan. It always ended up in the one they ended with, it'd save him a lotta time. More than likely make things easier too.

As soon as they were all inside, Mal pressed the button and the ramp closed up. They only had to kick off a few people to get it shut.

He could hear the bullets bouncing off the outside, and the people yelling, but there wasn't much handguns were gonna do to get past it. Serenity was built better than that.

"Do you have a doctor on board this thing?" Leader-man asked once the airlock closed tight, and they could hear each other.

"Get them to the infirmary." Mal ordered, Daniel had gotten shot. He wasn't gonna die from it, but it wasn't any question of if they were gonna need to deal with it. Untreated it was gonna get nasty, and turning the others against them wasn't part of the plan.

He turned. Kaylee stood in the middle of the cargo bay. "Kaylee, go find River, and make sure she stays away from this." There wasn't any telling what the girl'd do around them, or what they'd make of her.

The frequent meeting with trouble must've had some kind of effect on Simon, since he wasn't in the least bit surprised when someone showed up with a bullet in his leg. The only surprise was that he'd expected it to be one of them, not some man in green and black he'd never seen before. Well, more accurately he'd probably also not expected the man to be shot, and then brought on the ship.

"Put him on the chair." Simon said as he opened and closed a few doors to gather bandages and other things. Daniel went on the chair. Simon brought his supplies. "This is going to hurt."

"I've had worse." Daniel said, and Simon went to work.

"What are we going to do about the gate, Sir?" Sam asked.

Mal didn't wait for anyone else to answer, he had the only one that mattered, "We go and get it."

"No disrespect, _Captain,_" The leader-man said, "But we can't just go running out to grab it."

"They've probably found it by now." Daniel said, between winces and other sounds of pain, "We didn't exactly bury it like they did in Egypt."

Whatever delusion Mal had of just going out and getting it were strangled. There were more than enough men, and horses, outside to find and take the thing back to town. They even had horses to make moving it easier. "Well, we ain't getting paid until it's on the ship."

Commotions came from inside the cargo bay. Mal shoved the plans to get the gate aside.

Jayne stood at the airlock, staring at the door. That wasn't the problem. Stickers hadn't moved, but River had. She was there now. She slowly circled tall, dark, and handsome, head cocked to the side.

"Sorry Captain, she didn't want to stay away." Kaylee piped from up top.

River stopped, and stood staring at the man. The man stared right back, one eyebrow raised. They had some kinda conversation with raise eyebrows and titled heads. Then, River walked away without a word.

"Well that was strange." Jayne said

"Indeed."

Mal didn't wait to find out what Stickers thought of it before he quickly walked after her. She'd headed to the infirmary, and there were three more people for her to meet, and sharp things.

She walked right past Sam and leader-man, to stop at Daniel.

"You're dead." She sounded confused, which left Mal wondering if her words had finally left her as clueless as the rest of them.

"He's not dead, River." Simon said and stepped around her. "The bullet's right there."

"Not the bullet." River said, "Not dead."

Mal held his breath. The others still had their guns, and although they only looked concerned at River, there wasn't much telling what was gonna happen. Most folk didn't take too kindly to her kind of oddness.

"No. I'm not dead." Daniel said, slowly, and with another face that matched Simon's, "But what if I was?"

River gave him the same look Mal had been expecting from the others, and then walked away.

"Don't mind my sister." Simon said, "River's-"

"The girl's crazy." Jayne said.

The others just gave each other half-strange looks. Mal really needed to find something else to call them. _The others _just didn't sit right.

"What's the status on the gate?" Daniel asked.

"If they haven't gotten it by now it's only a matter of time."

"Well, we need it to get you all home and our asses off this planet." Mal said, "So we're taking it back."

"How do you plan on doing that?" Simon asked, "From the looks of things you haven't exactly made friends with them."

"I don't know yet." Mal said. There were far too many complications, none of them really anywhere near minor. Most were rather major.

"We could try explaining why we need it to them." Sam said, "We've talked out way out of worse before."

"It'd still leave us sitting ducks." Mal said, "Be same as telling them we stole it. Don't know about where you're from but things are done a bit different out here in the black." Mal paused and backpedaled a bit, he still needed something better to call the others. "Where'd you say you was from again?"

"Earth."

The others were crazy. Mal should've just left the ring and found another way to get Serenity up and going. So long as there were people, there were jobs to get.

"You from Earth too, Stickers?"

"I am from Chulak." Stickers said, "Earth has become my home though."

"What happened to Earth?" Daniel asked, the others turned to him. "It's not impossible something happened to it. With time-travel involved we have no idea of knowing how far in the future we are."

"You all are talking crazy." Simon said, "Are you certain you did not hit your head when you fell?"

Leader man sighed, "Well if something happened, let's hear it."

"The Earth that was." Mal said, "Couldn't live on it no more, so we spread to the black. Terraformed planets like this one."

"The gate should still be there to dial then if the Earth wasn't destroyed or taken over." Sam said.

"You're not calling anything until we get the gate back." Mal said, "You don't get home, we don't get home." They needed a plan and fast. Any more "minor" complications and they were gonna get stuck in the mud. Wasn't fair the problems things caused.

* * *

**A/N:** Sorry it took so long to update. Life loves throwing its own minor (and major) complications at me. Plus this style is giving me more trouble than I'm gonna be dishing out.

Story wise, sorry for all the dialogue, but the chapter is finally a bit longer. My normal stuff tends to run about this length so this is what you should probably expect from me.

Also thank you for the reviews, the faves, the follows, and even just your views because it means I made this look interesting enough for you to click on and read.

**Update: **Thanks to Sabra Jaguar for pointing out some extra noticeable seeping of my normal syntax and word choice into this chapter, particularly Jayne's line about no one being around, and for providing a suitable replacement line.


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